How to play & controls Mine Rush
Mine Rush is a minesweeper race. Both players get the same 9×12 field from one shared seed, 20 mines on 108 cells (a density of 18.5%), and each digs a private copy for up to four minutes. You see only how far your opponent has got, never which cells they have opened.
Nobody loses on the first click. A 3×3 block inside the board is kept free of mines, and the field is rerolled until the area that opens from it covers 12 to 20 cells, so both players start from the same numbers. A mine doesn't end your game either. It freezes you for 3 seconds, and each later hit adds 1.5 seconds, up to 8.
Two tools shape the race. Opening cells charges Smoke, which hides up to 14 numbers on your opponent's board for 7 seconds. Scan, twice per match, shows the mines in a 3×3 square for 4 seconds, even while you are frozen.
Modes
Practice vs AI (Easy / Normal / Hard)
The levels have 16, 20 or 24 mines and an AI that waits about 3.5, 2.9 or 1.4 seconds between moves. Only practice has the ⏸ pause and the chord check, and only practice saves your round when you leave, its clock stopped until you return.
Today's minefield
Signed-in players all get the same 20-mine board, which changes at midnight Korea time. You race an AI slightly weaker than Normal, with no pause. The score is opened cells × 1,000 plus seconds left; your best run of the day is kept and shown only to you, with no public ranking.
Online match (Find opponent / invite code)
Two signed-in players dig one 20-mine field for four minutes. You can practice against the AI while queued, and invite codes last 10 minutes. Every finished match changes your Mine Rush rating, which starts at 1,000.
Controls
| Action | Mouse & keyboard | Touch | Gamepad |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open a cell | Left-click, or the arrow-key cursor + Enter/Space | Tap | Left stick + A, or D-pad cursor + Y |
| Flag / unflag | Right-click, or F at the cursor | Hold about 0.3 s, or tap in ⚑ flag mode | X |
| Open around a number | Click a number whose flags match; in practice, then the confirm button | Tap the number; in practice, then confirm | A on the number |
| Chord check (practice) | Check on/off; Esc cancels a preview | Tap Check on/off | A on it; B cancels a preview |
| Fire Smoke | ☁ once it turns gold | Tap ☁ | A on ☁ |
| Scan | ◎, then a cell | Tap ◎, then a cell | A on ◎, then on a cell |
| Pause (practice) | P or ⏸; P or Enter resumes | ⏸, then Resume | A on ⏸; Start resumes |
| Give up | ⚐, then confirm | ⚐, then confirm | A on ⚐, then confirm |
Strategy tips
Take guesses early
Freezes last 3, 4.5, 6 and 7.5 seconds, then 8 for each further hit, and the count never resets: four hits cost 21 of your 240 seconds. An unavoidable coin flip is cheapest before your first hit.
Know what decides time-up
At time-up only opened safe cells count, with fewer mine hits breaking a tie. Behind and out of sure moves, a guess can only help; ahead, a hit only adds a freeze and a worse tie-break.
Exploded mines work as flags
A mine you stepped on counts as a flag when you chord a number next to it, so it never needs flagging. If wrong flags make one chord set off several mines, that still counts as one hit.
Wrong flags also stop cascades
Automatic opening skips flagged cells, so a flag on a safe cell stops a 0-area at that spot, and a tap won't open it. If an opening stops short, look for your own flag at its edge.
Scan where you would guess
Scan marks every mine among the unopened cells of the chosen cell and its eight neighbours, flagged ones included. 'No mines nearby' still uses the Scan but proves every closed cell there safe. Use it while frozen, when you can't dig anyway.
Don't let Smoke pile up
Smoke hides up to 14 of your opponent's opened numbers, picked at random, never 0s. While they have few numbers showing, that can be all of them; later, many picks land on numbers they have finished with. You can store two shots, charging stops while both are stored, and you can't fire while frozen.
Beat the AI where the basic rules end
The practice AI uses only two rules: if a number equals its closed neighbours, they are all mines; if its mines are all marked, the rest are safe. Cells that need two numbers compared make it guess, and on Easy it skips a sure move about one time in three to guess instead.
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